According to a report published in the journal Nature, while US health regulators added a new antibody drug to the country's arsenal against the Omicron variant of coronavirus, the rapidly spreading subvariant, BA.2, may force doctors to reconsider antibody treatments for coronavirus disease (Covid-19). Based on multiple investigations, the research implies that sotrovimab, one of the few treatments for Covid-19 induced by the Omicron, is losing its capacity to neutralise BA.2.
The Omicron BA.2 is not neutralised by Regeneron, Eli Lilly, Sotrovimab, or the Evusheld therapeutic monoclonal antibodies, according to a team of US researchers from NYU Grossman School of Medicine's department of microbiology. The findings "show the challenge of developing widely neutralising monoclonal antibodies against SARS-CoV-2," according to the researchers.
Another group of Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons researchers reported that BA.2 was resistant to 17 of 19 neutralising monoclonal antibodies that nevertheless showed "significant action" against BA.1. Both studies are in pre-print and have not been peer reviewed.
However, David Ho, a virologist at Columbia University and co-author of one of the research, stated that laboratory findings cannot be extrapolated to human treatment outcomes.
"We're just pointing out that BA.2 is highly resistant to sotrovimab in the lab, which raises doubts about whether you can fully cover BA.2 in patients," Ho said, according to Nature.
While BA.1 is still the most common variety of concern in various nations, including the United States and the United Kingdom, BA.2 instances are on the rise in India, China, and Denmark.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Tuesday that the Omicron BA.2 variation is not more severe than the original. Maria Van Kerkhove, a senior WHO official, stated during an online question and answer session that no difference in illness severity between BA.1 and BA.2 has been proven.
"As far as the danger of hospitalisation is concerned, this is a similar level of severity. And this is critical since both BA.1 and BA.2 have had a lot of circulation in various countries "she stated
While BA.2 appears to have the potential to prolong the present Omicron Covid outbreak over the world, no scientific consensus exists on whether it causes more severe disease than BA.1.
According to a recent research released by Bloomberg from South Africa, it appears to have the same severity as BA.1, making it milder than Delta.
However, according to a manuscript submitted to biorxiv for peer review, BA.2 is more pathogenic than BA.1, meaning it causes more sickness.
The South African research looked at data from 95,470 cases reported by the government's laboratory agency in a big hospital system.
Infected with the sub-variant BA.2, 3.6 percent of those infected with the original Omicron ended up in the hospital, compared to 3.4 percent who ended up in the hospital with the original Omicron variant BA.1.
"Our multi-scale findings imply that the danger of BA.2 for world health is possibly larger than that of BA.1," the biorxiv research says.
While the judgement is yet out on what BA.2 means for Covid-19 in New Zealand and throughout the world, it looks the sub-variant will be around for a while.
In New Zealand, there were 1573 cases of Covid-19.
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